For those of you interested in seeing how those fake chips are made, here's a fantastic video by @plgDavid that shows some footage of the actual operation: ukposts.info/have/v-deo/o2djh3x5hpCQzas.html

9:19 "None of these go away with alcohol"... same for my problems

I think the sellers are being scammed themselves, by wholesalers. The fact that two had the same packaging suggests to me that the items had arrived and been shipped without testing, inspection or verification. One instance that happened to me, I bought wire strippers from an eBay seller, in my own country. They didn't work, the assembly was so poor they just couldn't work at all, so I contacted the seller with an explanation of how the strippers could never have worked and a photo and a diagram of how they never gripped the wire. All I got back was "I just sell them" and a refund.

I once ordered a bunch of chips from China with OR-gates on them. The number on the chips was correct for OR-gate chips, but when I put them on my breadboard, they turned out to be AND-gates lol.

I used to inspect electronics for a distributor in the Atlanta-area, and I saw some pretty strange stuff: Acetone was the primary test that we used to test surface markings. When they'd sand off the surfaces, it would end up creating really sharp lines from the surface to the sides (usually they're curved). Ran into a few where they must have mixed the surface material in with some epoxy or something before they layered it back onto the chip; acetone test didn't remove the surface on those, but other visual clues would show a suspect part: Could see changes in the plastic coloring between surface and sides (or surface and bottom), or inconstancies in the printing, etc. My boss, the QA manager, had some pictures on his office door that showed people crouched over a sterno flame, melting solder from PCBs and then smashing them against rocks to pop the parts out. Then they'd take the components and do their dirty sinful business. It's a pretty crazy sub-industry.

This video presented the most thorough chip test and verification regime I have seen on any channel. Head and shoulders above the rest. Excellent content Noel. Your work is much appreciated.

I have bought once a MICRDCHIP! That's right! A letter "D" rather than "O". A real chame...

Often what happens is that it takes ages to arrive and you may not test it the minute it arrives, so in the meantime time goes by and when you want to open a case is too late. Very useful video! Thank you!

Unfortunately some sellers use photos of real chips and sell fake ones. The same problem is with transistors and other components. The only option is to test as soon as you receive it. Thanks for the interesting video.

What a great service you have rendered those of us who buy a lot of IC's and passives off of eBay! Thanks for your very thorough analysis and clarity of presentation! Top drawer!

I've run into counterfeit chips a couple of times. About thirty years ago I came across a batch opto isolators that were flakey. The leads had been trimmed to make them even causing problems for me because the part was being socketed. In recent, I've come across a batch of OP-02 chips that have had a bad failure rate. Examination showed trimmed leads and a top coat. The top of the chip looked nice and clean but the texture was different from the sides and the bottom. Alcohol and acetone didn't cause any of the top to rub off with a Q-tip but it did soften to the point it scratched off with a finger nail.

Great video and you make an important point, to check your purchases as soon as you receive them

They may be paying a dime each for those fake chips. Sell them for $3, and you can still afford to pay refunds if someone complains, and still make money.

Its a systematic process. They recycle, sand and remark everything. I made a 45 minute video on this. They recycle even smd ceramic caps.

Great video! Another way of comparing/measuring unknown chips is to identify the clamping protection diodes that most designs have on the I/O pins. That makes it relatively easy to separate supply pins from I/O pins and compare that to the expected pinout.

Great video! Really focusing on the fake chips problem, in a particular type of chip and doing methodical tests, like we got used to on this channel, rather than just mentioning and complaining about it during an unrelated repair. Good job! About buying fakes: I've recently had to go through four iterations, to finally buy a genuine 387sx PLCC FPU for my Amiga A2386sx PC bridgeboard. The first one worked for a few hours, before dying. The second and third plain never worked, and also prevented the computer from booting. The fourth one - bought in Europe from a retro seller not on eBay - finally works well ever since. Also, the lettering on the first three was a lot duller, and it was possible to wash it off/make it almost unreadable with some alcohol. On the working one the lettering was much brighter. Interestingly, checking the bottom of the chips they all say "Made in USA Cyrix 1989" so I guess they're all FPUs, except maybe some of them are broken chips from some leftover stock, or was rated for much lower clock speeds than my machine is running at.

I think that chip #1 is actually a legitimate original TI chip but is likely recovered from a used circuit board that was sent for recycling. As you noted at the beginning these chips are particularly sensitive and the recovery process could have damaged that chip or it might have been faulty to begin with. I believe this due to how the markings appear on identical to the original chip, how it passes the acetone test and it does not appear to be sanded. I think 2 and 3 are legitimate new replacement chips from TI. The TI logo in the pit is likely a newer anti-counterfitting measure.

I don't know if it interests any one , the dots come from the ejector pin on the mold, they push the part clear of the mold. Not an expert just work it manufacturing

Another excellent video from Noel. I'm also curious about this strange way of obtaining profit with damaged (or non-working) goods. I've seen that in some cases and similar transaction processes, it is all about money laundering through transactions based on near-to-zero valued goods. We don't have enough information (as simple users), but totally agree with you: this scheme is quite strange and pointless, unless something is going on in the backyard. Love your videos mate: 8bit+electronics+learning+methods for real life+investigation !!!!.

An excellent and really interesting video...thanks, Noel!

Hi Noel, Never watched your channel before but I must say I'm impressed. I like how you establish a baseline and follow up to the next step. Was glad to see the amount of logical choices in this video that make sense, especially regarding not just testing the possibly fake chips on a working board. So many retro channels just seem to do whatever and may cause more damage just for a video :) Safe to say I'm a fan, subscribed!

Chip number 1 had identically styled printing to the control chip, implying it was an old chip that had been resold. Older chips have older inks that come off more easily than the newer ones that use better/newer paint/ink. Personally, I think it's an old dead chip that was resold, rather than a fake. Chips 2 and 3 all had newer printing.

Thanks for this, most educational. I have been lucky so far and have not got fake chips off ebay (but I've only bought a few). You've given me some techniques to test before I blow up my project. Happy to subscribe also

Great ideas here! I have some Bucket Brigade delay chips which are very hard to find without ending up with fakes. Looking forward to trying your tests.

What I noticed during the alcohol was the suspect chips’ lettering was about invisible when they were wet. In the real ones’ you could see the writing bright and clear.

I like that they put the TI logo on the ejection pins. A nice little touch that is likely not worth the trouble of the counterfeit chip seller's time.

Wow ... this is exciting to watch. I was routing for each and every chip during the review XD

Very interesting and thorough test! Was super interesting, thank you!

A couple of things come to mind: 1. It might be that they are relying on fact that people won't quibble over a few dollars/euros and won't bother to try returning them. This is the same principal used in rebates...many people buy a product because of a rebate offer, but only 20% actually send in the rebate. Perhaps the law of averages is what's at play here? 2. Maybe there's more nefarious reasons? Perhaps the seller is hoping to damage the electronics of whatever these chips are being used for? I don't know how that would be possible, but if they could make power come out of one of the data pins, you could damage the component on the "other end" of that data line.

Excellent! Great testing though.

Thank you for creating and posting this video. I found it quite useful and entertaining. Subscribed.

Enjoyed the video! Just got my Arduino project kit in the mail today. I am definitely going to try and make that test circuit.

One thing I noticed is that you use a static strap and I am glad to see it. Not many videos show that it is important. Showing an alternate way to test these chips is fantastic. I also had some bad chips that were supposedly out of USA but came from china. I love Paypal, they protect us when the sellers are not responsible companies. Back in the 80s I had gotten hold of manufacture's discards which I was surprised that they weren't destroyed or chopped up. So they are out there. Thank you for your wonderful and smart videos! We get to learn things the right way!

Nice work identifying the counterfeit ones! This is really becoming a problem especially with the 68060 chips. It might be a cool follow-up to try to resolve what those counterfeit chips are in reality.

Just Subbed, Noel!! Very Well Done and informative video! Thank You!

Thanks for the exciting thriller, Mr. Noel. Subscribed :)

We do recurring training at work to guard against counterfeit parts like this.

I repair and restore old pinball machines and this is a constant annoyance. I just assumed they might just hope that the receiver either doesn't bother to ask for a refund for a $5 part or might think they broke it themselves and wanted to avoid any hassle. Most colorful reactions I've gotten from a fake TIP102's, that literally blow up if they get any load. They're a lot of fun to watch when a pinball machine fires up a solenoid and instead emits smoke signals.

I am new to the channel. Intro made me smile (in good way), content made me subscribe.

Great informative video. Thanks Noel this wonderful piece of information !!!

open up the chip CuriousMarc's method, maybe someone recognize the die, or maybe has some markings.

Interresting video :) Another thing to look for when doing the visual inspection is the date codes on the chips. The original working one says it were manufactured in the 10th week of 1983 which fits both with the chip type and the device it is used in. All the other chips have either nonsensical date codes or datecodes that seems wrong. The two new working chips, no 2 and 3 do not follow Texas Instruments convention date code convention of YYWW (year, week) and if read the other way, it says they were made in the 32nd week of 1970, which makes little sense since this TMS chip were first introduced in 1979. Despite them working, they might still be "fake" in the sense that they are reused from discarded electronics and then rebranded to seem new.

Great test, very correct approach.

I have seen another video showing a bit similar comparison. However, there was one additional observation. The bottom side markings typically contain additional information like the manufacturing plant and batch numbering or similar. People doing relabeling ("remanufacturing") may not bother sanding and redoing that info. I am not sure what exact info you could dig out from the bottom side markings in this case, but in any case,, there could be some useful info before or after alcohol (or acetone) wiping. Another thing relates to the sourcing of the chips. We once got a batch of certain chips from an authorized distributor. These chips failed in short order in our product burn-in test. When we started looking closer, the part marking was on a wrong side. Apparently the printer of the re-labeling operation could not print on the correct side for one reason or other. The part was a power MOS FET in TO-227 package. Inside there was a pair of small chips, while the original ones used just oner large die. The distributor claimed they got these parts from the official source. The conclusion might be that there was some foul play somewhere in the supply chain -- somebody with access to the parts did a nice swap, replacing the good official parts with cheap fake parts and then got good parts to sell at a nice profit elsewhere.

It's interesting how all the various vendors had 99+ % feedback ratings... Evidently there's some way of gaming the system? Good investigative work, and presented very clearly.

So: are we talking fake as in something like the actual chip, but with maybe a different speed or temperature rating, maybe untested, but at least there's *some* hope of the chip actually doing the job, or are they fake as in random 40-pin packages that have no relationship to the real one, and have no hope whatsoever of working?

Great thing about that Arduino Uno is that if you fry the IC you can just pop it out and put another in. Of course you'd have to plug in an ICSP adapter to flash the new chip, but I did so to my own Uno when I blew out a pin.

Nice video. I think you should do a followup on this video and create your own simple PCB with a few LEDs that just check for basic resistance when a battery is attached. I know it would not probably show if it is fully functional, but it should show if it fake or not to those who do not have much skill to test like you do.

Three things to say: Firstly I came to UKposts, I am an electronics enthusiast, but I like repairs, simple objects are my curiosity and motivation to enjoy repairing. Second, a very good video, on how to detect fraud, would obviously go on trial and error, and you explained very well how to detect a chip fraud, without damaging the equipment in question since these older ones have chips and components that do not manufacture anymore and it’s dangerous to fix it on the market. Third I liked the shirt, I had to look for the periodic table to know what chemical element it was. Congratulations. Três coisas a dizer: Primeiramente vim por indicação do youtube, sou um entusiasta na área de eletrônica, mas gosto de reparos, objetos simples é minha curiosidade e motivação em gostar de consertar. Segundo, um vídeo muito bom, sobre como detectar fraudes, obviamente iria na tentativa e erro, e você explicou muito bem como detectar uma fraude de chips, sem danificar o equipamento em questão visto que esses mais antigos possuem chips e componentes que não fabricam mais e fica perigoso consertar com que tem no mercado. Terceiro gostei da camisa, tive que procurar a tabela períodica para saber que elemento qumímico era. Parabéns.

This is really useful -- thank you! Not only some good techniques for detecting fakes, but I'm building a video card around a TMS9918A right now and that Arduino tester circuit will be something I can adapt to ensure that I'm using working parts!

Great video. As someone who has fallen victim to this practice more times than I care to admit to, this gave some really great tips on how to check and test.

Great video. Liked how you put the which seller's were the decent one's. Keep up the good work. 😁

I like your Subterfuge shirt. Gosh, I haven't played that game in such a long time. I think I'll download it again and start again.

Hey!! I was wondering about the same problem with all chips I buy on AliExpress and Ebay. I just bought 74HC logic chips, 555, Z80, SRAMs memories, CPLDs and sound chips. I have to test all chips and I think a 50% of them are counterfeit or failing. Thanks, thanks for doing this video. Interesting, entertaining and outstanding complete study. Please, make more videos like this!!

Nice! Good to know for the future!

Great stuff Noel thanks for sharing

Very interesting. I thought the last 2 chips were promising when I saw the TI logo in the round dip. There are quite a few fake AY sound chips around at the moment as well. I think they hope to make a bit of money off people who can't be bothered to send them back, or leave it too late to find out they are fake.

As an aside, while the TMS9928A/9929A outputs are labelled as Y,R-Y,B-Y they are in fact YUV signals. I'm working with a small team investigating this and the palette associated with these VDPs. We've taken vectorscope readings and these have confirmed our suspicion that the output is YUV. When our work is complete we'll document and publish our findings.

very interesting and informative video.. thanks Noel :)

I've had experiences where a single chip is nearly always fake, but multiple chips most of them work. This leads me to assume a % of people just ordering one chip may think that the fault is elsewhere in their system and never make a claim. Whereas someone ordering 10 of them is bound to claim if all 10 do not work, hence why I think they mix in good ones. I also think that many hobbyists might not realise they have a fake chip and never claim for it, assuming something else is wrong in the system they are looking at. Just recently I've bought 3 different WD33C93 SCSI chips from different sellers, each claiming to be genuine, when they are something completely different rebadged. It's super annoying!!!

Noel, In your video It looks like all working chips have a somewhat larger hole between the middle connecting pins on both sides. So that may be an easy way to recognize real VDP chips from a photo..

Another video that goes way beyond most others, Thank you Noel.

Great video Noel! This is something that we really needed. I was hoping to get a look at the bottom of each IC to see any differences there. But anyway, well done. While here you put these specific VDPs under the microscope, the principles can be applied to any other IC. For whatever reason, the "legitimate" TMS 9929s lack date codes, but appear to be newly manufactured. If so, that is a surprise to me. I can't imagine any modern-day applications for it, and the demand can't be high enough to justify running a full production line. On the other hand, if they are "new old stock", the supply is limited and the prices should be far higher. I just don't get it. It's weird!

Very informative video as always. Like you mentioned, these fake chips (depending what they actually are) could cause serious damage to our retro machines, so it's vital that we actually know what we're getting. I have to admit I've been careless in the past and trusted sellers to be honest, and so far I've been lucky. I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to try to verify any chips that I receive in future and, as you say, do it when they arrive rather than a few months down the line.

Kind of an aside, but still worth noting: I've seen a lot of Chinese power supplies lately that have fake UL listings.

My thoughts. Chip 0 is clearly fake. Chip 1 is more interesting. The markings look genuine but the readings are no good. My guess is this chip may be genuine but is faulty. Chips 2 & 3 genuine.

I used to work for a company that did some counterfeit chip testing. You would be amazed at what we saw. Chips with die inside but no wirebonds. Chips with no die at all. Chips with a date code years after the last time buy notice. Chips with one company's logo externally, but a different company logo etched in the die pattern. As long as the package is the same, and demand exists for the obsolete chip, counterfeits will be made. Better fakes use laser markings because the solvent (acetone) test was so effective at detecting poor ink marking. Using x-ray and comparing to a known good sample of similar vintage and from the same fab is the best method of detection, second only to electrical testing. The vendors are very fly by night and operate as a number of companies, changing identity frequently enough to evade detection. Even with an escrow agreement, they will just try to stall long enough to get the funds released before the counterfeits are identified. Or, they send a handful of good chips for advance testing, get the funds, then ship a load of fakes. Another scam is to salt a lot of mostly good chips with some quantity of fakes, especially with higher cost chips. The hope is that it takes some time to identify the fraud, either to clear escrow or to give them time to change the company identity. Buying from "different vendors" does nothing to protect the buyer because if they are selling the same chip they can easily be the same fraud company. Best to avoid buying obsolete chips from China unless you want to buy a handful and hope at least one works.

I love the randomness of ordering electronic components and such on eBay. I have received things that should be in antistatic bags on regular ziplock, and things that did not need ESD protection at all in ESD bags. Including ESD wrist straps.

14:334 i mark my bad chips / auto parts with "NFG" . for "no fuc@ing good"

I was expecting some kind of impostor doritos or something

This one is a great one!!! thank you again Noel, a couple of cuestions: 1. Why did you use the VCC and clock signals to check? 2. On the breadboard you reproduce the scheme showed by yourself, well.. How do you protect the circuit (Arduino) ni case it has a short circuit? Again thank you very much

That's gotta be super frustrating for out of production parts. I've turned to ebay a few times for nock-off digital components, like the DS18B20 temperature sensors, or analog stuff like TI I2C ADC chips. So far haven't gotten any that were complete fakes, but have gotten chips that did not perform to the specs published in the datasheet (ADC mostly). I suspect they're rejects from QA at a factory, that are stolen by employees, change hands a few times, and end up on ebay (and Amazon.) Nice video, thanks for sharing with us.

send them to Ken Shirriff for de-caping !

5:20 - This is purely a guess... but if I had to put a finger on the process it'd be something like government subsidization. They sell a trinket and a packet leaves the country, their government gives them maybe a euro of credit or something, maybe some other kind of power within their infrastructure. Government backing plays a HUGE part in the Chinese economy. You've got to remember, the country is communist, they're selling to a free market but are themselves not.

Thank you for your helpful information. This is a real problem.

I am in Australia and have come across people buying vintage synthesizers, replacing the original chips with fake ones and selling them back on as original condition. These original chips willl be worth heaps in the future.

The reason for doing this with cheap items is that a high percentage of people will not complain or ask for their money back ( equals profit ), if the item was 50 euros or dollars then everyone would want their refund and there would be no purpose to the whole process

"When even the real one, comes from China..."

Fascinating video Noel, very thorough investigation. First time on your channel, I'm very impressed with your knowledge and low key approach. Subscribed.

I purchased some new eprom chips that were also relabelled. After removing the paint you could see the original chip was the same but from different batches so they made the entire lot look like it was from the same batch. To me it would not be an issue if they are not the same batch so I am not sure why go through so much effort for this.

The space between the 2 most central pins on each side have a distinct look on the chips that work. Interesting.

That’s some good info! Especially since you are forced to order from China as there’s often not available. I try to avoid ordering from China as much as possible. I find their regime deplorable and they also have grown by merely learning from our IP that we send there to mass produce. And now they are an economic threat to the western world.

I had a similar issue with some RCA 1802 microprocessors I bought from China. I built a tester using an Aruduino Mega that let you run a machine code program to test the uC. It turned out that 8 out of 10 of them were good. The other two sort of worked but were not 100%. It pays to functionally test all such parts as soon as you get them.

My dear colleague! As they say in Hungarian, I am an "old fox" in electronics. I came across counterfeit transistors 35 years ago !!! (and more and more since then, MOSFETs, etc.) in 1985 (the Iron Curtain still stood between Eastern and Western Europe.) Hungary belonged to the Eastern Bloc. I asked my friend (who has „western passport”) buy me 100 pieces of 2N3773 transistors In Western Germany. He bought, (it was not cheap) and all 100 pieces had a breakdown voltage of less than 100 volts (according to the data sheet were 140) it was “RCA made.” He was soon able to return it to the dealer who returned the price without dispute. They started counterfeiting back then, and I've been testing everything before soldering. I wish you much more success in your work and good health!

I suspect they are getting their money from selling your buyer's info to a database. Either in the form of seeing what is being bought, as in buyers' activities database or worst your mailing info, I have been suspecting that from most China-based eBay vendors for years. EDIT: chip 0, I would be curious to find out if it's not just some other chip they had in big volume and they just sand down and re-label it as other chips, maybe look up what was commonly used with the same package and try finding out what chip it matches lol Could be time-consuming endeavour mind you.

-They buy old chips in bulk. -They sort the chips by what socket they fit. -So you place your order -They look up what socket the chip fits. -They grab a chip that matches the socket. -They sand off the number and print the number you asked for. -Wrap it in a zip lock bag and ship. So they are selling thousands of chips under a hundred different numbers. Since most people would assume they misdiagnosed the problem or there are additional problems they dont bother asking for a refund. I've actually had a chip arrive for an old stereo and it was obvious that they had cut down a longer chip so it would have the right number of pins, but the printing looked right.

I always assumed the ripoffs were just any defective chip in the same package where they just remove the silk screen and have blank bins. Then as orders come in they are wiped with whatever numbers the customers want from existing stencils. So yea, your obscure chip silk screen might only get thirty wipes a month, but they probably have thousands of silkscreens that match blanks on hand so they fill those orders. Other issue I had was the chips that didn’t quite make spec at factory were just rebranded and sold at the same price.

Nice Thankyou I learned many things 👍

These won't be the only items that these Chinese sellers deal in. You'll find that they sell all kinds of stuff. Also, the 2 chips with identical packaging from 2 different sellers were probably from the same people. They set up multiple store fronts and peddle the same stuff. That's meant to be against Ebay's rules but Ebay doesn't actually care as long as the sales commissions keep coming in.

Most of these comments are: "I came here for a good argument!" "No you didn't, you came here for an argument." For those who missed it ~ Courtesy of Monty Python

As that chip with slab heatsink is toast, you could use a heat gun or put it in the oven to get the heatsink off. You could reuse it in one of the projects for the sake of originality or just keep it "just in case."

AWESOME! Thanks for all the advices ;-)

37 bad ebay sellers has thump down this video.

not all buyers start a dispute as i think so their profit is from those peoples.

Excellent video .. thanks for your efforts.

I work with plastics and we use a silver colored Sharpie to mark our materials. Much easier to see than black marker on black plastic.

Checking this chips is like a COVID-19 testing. Haha.

Crewmate There is 1 impostor among us

Excellent video. Same thing happened to me also with fakes LT1084, LM 338, uA7815 and other IC's I bought off eBay China and AliExpress.

TI/994A was my first computer! Concerning your IC's I had 2 fake lm338's from a local store, 1.2-32v/5A voltage regulators. I was told that they were packaging lm317/1.25-37v/1.5A* into them in china. Not the same thing at all. It's annoying, but I'm glad you at least got 2 out of 4. Good video.